Spark
by Trance
Summary: Currently a one-shot, may become more. The newly found daughter of the surly potions master has been brought to England from America at the beginning of the summer after fourth year. She has been brought to Grimmauld Place for safety and makes quite a first impression upon some of the inhabitants.
1. Chapter 1

This idea was floating about, and I finally found the time to type it out. It's not a one shot, but more of a teaser I suppose. This particular scene was the most clear to me. The OC presented here is named Alice, and she is the newly found teenage daughter of Severus Snape. She has been quietly brought to England from America with the help of Dumbledore, but for her safety is being kept at Grimmauld Place. This is a rather short piece, but I do like how it came out. Rating is for language, I wanted to err on the side of caution to be safe. Reviews are always appreciated, and if anyone would like to see more of this story played out, let me know and I'll see what I can dream up.

* * *

It was dark, dank and dusty inside the house. The hallway inside was lit with old fashioned lamps that hang from the walls. Cobwebs were in the corners, though Alice could tell someone had attempted to clean away most of them. At the end of the hall was an open doorway from which light flooded and the clattering of pots and pans could be heard beyond. The aroma of fresh bread wafted down the hall as well, reminding Alice that she hadn't eaten much since yesterday in anticipation of the portkey that had brought her to London.

Professor Dumbledore placed his hand on her shoulder and gently pushed, encouraging her to continue down the hall. She wasn't too keen on the contact but did her best not to shy away from it. She started walking slowly forward, taking in more of her surroundings. The rug beneath her was old and faded, though the pattern that was still visible hinted that it must have once been very beautiful and expensive. There was a portrait on the wall to her left that was covered with a dusty black curtain. Beneath the curtain was a table upon which sat a candelabra in the shape of twisting serpents.

Above her she took note of a chandelier that also took the shape of serpents. Judging by the chandelier, the candelabra and the door knocker, it seemed whoever lived here, or once had, had a very serious fixation on snakes.

The front door opened behind them and Alice turned just as a young woman with spiked bubblegum pink hair walked through. She closed the door as gently as the black robed man had, glancing in the direction of the covered portrait as she did. As soon as the door was closed she turned and flashed a smile at the group of three.

"Good Afternoon Professor Dumbledore, Professor Snape." Snape gave her a nod of acknowledgment as Dumbledore returned her smile with his own and greeted her, "Miss Tonks, nice to see you again. I am glad you were able to make it today."

"Me too," she began, walking up the hallway with them. "Thought I wasn't going to be able though, nearly got caught up in Kent with Arthur. Some dimwit thought it would be funny to charm his late wife's knickknacks to bite muggles right on the bottom when they went to buy them from his pawn shop. Gave us a bit of trouble, he did. Sent a few stunners our way but nothing we couldn't handle. Moody says he'll be here as soon as he can, went to check on some rumors up near Not-"

But wherever this Moody person had gone was forgotten as Tonks tripped over what Alice made out to be an umbrella stand made out of a trolls foot, falling to the floor rather loudly. 'A bit gruesome-' was the semi-blonde's beginning thoughts, but a loud screeching yell interrupted them. The dusty black curtains on the nearby portrait she'd noticed before had flown open and the occupant was making a racket to raise the dead.

_**'Blood Traitors! Mudbloods! Besmirching the house of my noble ancestors! Filth of the wizarding world!' **_

From the open doorway down the hall came three people: A man with wavy black hair that framed his face, which had a rather angry look upon it. Behind him was a sandy haired man with scars that adorned his own calm face. Behind them both was an older woman with red hair who was wearing an apron covered in flour.

The scarred man and the woman grabbed one of the curtains while the angry black haired man grabbed the other, and together they attempted to shut them closed around the portrait. This went on for about a minute, the portrait woman becoming more irate when she saw the angry man attempting to shut her in the darkness again. Her pale yellow face was becoming slightly red, the black cap upon her head starting to fall off with the effort it took to yell at the man. For his part, the man was shouting them right back at her, calling her an old hag, a spiteful harpy, and apparently an awful mother.

Snape and Dumbledore had gone around to each of the other portraits, each of whom had woken when the first had, and yelled many of the same obscenities she had, and began to stun them. Alice wondered why they didn't just stun the woman too, but supposed that perhaps her portrait had protective charms over it. It was after all the only one with curtains, and she supposed that had meant something when the other portraits hadn't.

Another minute had gone by with no progress on the screeching portrait when Alice decided that enough was enough and attempted to help. She climbed up on the table beneath the life-sized portrait and stood up next to her face. Fixing the woman with her best glare, she began her own yelling.

_'HEY LADY! YOU WANNA YELL ANY LOUDER? I DON'T THINK THEY FUCKING HEARD YOU IN BEIJING!'_

The screeching stopped. The portrait gave an odd expression, a mix between being astounded and disgusted. She took in the features of the young teenager: blonde hair with bits of bright red, eyes as dark as the night sky, piercings not only in her ears but a ring in her eyebrow and a stud in her nose. Never in her life nor afterlife had she seen such things on a person, but the mouth on the girl reminded her very much of her firstborn. But her moment of silence cost her, because the girl had taken the two curtains and shut them in her face when she wasn't paying them any attention.

Alice turned, jumped off the table and began to knock the dust off her arms and shoulders. She took little notice of the other six people around her, but she did notice the expressions on their faces. Dumbledore had a raised eyebrow, but the twinkle was still present in his eyes. The black haired man had an odd grin on his face, while the scarred man beside him had an expression of relief. The woman in the apron had a slight disgruntled look upon her face, more than likely from the one obscenity Alice had screamed at the portrait, but her eyes held relief as well. The woman who had tripped over the umbrella stand had a grin on her face, but the last face was the complete opposite. He was glaring at her with those eyes so very much like her own. More than that, she was certain one of them was twitching slightly.

She wasn't about to care about how he felt at the moment, the silence was well worth the glare.


	2. Chapter 2

Alice managed to make it through the classroom door just as the bell sounded and the door shut itself behind her. In front of her there were tables meant for two, however all but one table was occupied by pairs. The only seat available was the one by Luna Lovegood, but as Alice had already decided that she liked Luna, this was more than fine by her. She sat down and placed her bag beside her, grabbing from it the book (useless, as far as she was concerned) that had been assigned to this class. She took note that Luna also had the book, but had covered it in what appeared to be radish stickers.

Looking around the classroom, Alice noticed that it was quite bare, nothing like the Defense classroom back at Salem. Back home, she could have expected bookshelves covering subjects ranging from the nastiest of curses(kept on the high shelf so as to deter the younger students, though it never worked on herself) to how to build your own dark detectors. Their teacher had told them when they began in their first year that defense was more than protective charms and debilitating hexes, and had even gone so far as to teach muggle self defense methods to those willing to learn. She'd proclaimed that in her classroom they would find the tools necessary to protect both themselves and others, to learn all they could to do so. To Alice it quickly became both a favorite and necessary subject to learn. Even in her short life she'd learned that to survive one needed to be prepared for anything, and absorbed all the information and techniques she was able to.

But here, she could already tell something was off. There was absolutely nothing aside from the desks and blackboard in this room that pertained to learning. In ways it worried her, knowing that Hogwarts was supposed to be one of the best schools in Europe. Everyone in Grimmauld Place had told her that a Hogwarts education would be the best she could have, touting it's curriculum and teachers (even the dour potions master she had the oh so wonderful privilege to call a father). And as sure as she was that Hogwarts was indeed an excellent school, she chalked most of their talk up to school spirit. After all, none of them had gone to any other institution besides Hogwarts, so she really didn't see how they could brag about it being the best with no other experience in the matter. She had assessed from both the train and the humongous feast the first night that the school was prosperous, and concluded that if it wasn't as grand as others had said, parents would not have sent their children to learn there.

A door opened on the right side of the room, and out came the frilly pink toad woman that had interrupted Dumbledore's opening speech the first night. She smiled in her sickeningly way that made Alice want to hurl in the nearest trashcan. "Good morning, class." she spoke, her voice just as nauseating as her smile. A few students gave a "good morning" back, but not as loud as Umbridge wanted apparently, as she quickly stated "Now that will not do. When I say 'Good morning, class', I should like to hear 'Good morning, Professor Umbridge' in reply. Now, let's try again, shall we? Good morning, class."

"Good morning, Professor Umbridge."

Alice heard the reply all around her, but did not join in. She refused to become a trained monkey. Umbridge pointed her wand to the blackboard and the chalk started to write on its own. The elegant cursive spelled out '_Course aims'_ and continued on to list what Alice thought to be a large load of crap. Where was the practical application? The actual practice of defensive spells? "Now, wands away and begin reading the first chapter of _Defensive Magical Theory_. There will be no need to talk." Seemingly as one, the rest of the class grabbed their textbooks and opened to the prescribed reading. Alice had her book on the desk, but didn't open it. She had already glanced at the first chapter back at Grimmauld Place and had deducted it was useless.

"Excuse me, Miss Snape. Is there a problem?"

Alice's head jerked up. She hadn't realized that she'd been staring at her unopened book so long. She thought a moment, deciding what she wanted to say. There was certainly a problem, and she was determined to address it. She wasn't going to waste her time in a place where she wasn't doing anything. "Yes, actually, there is. Where is the aim of practicing defensive spells?"

Umbridge blinked, "Why would you need to do such a thing? As long as you know understand the theory you will be able to perform any spell." She spoke with her disgustingly sweet voice, which was starting to grate on Alice's nerves.

"I disagree. Theory is one thing, but experience is another. Are you telling us that you intend to just drop us in the world outside these walls with nothing but the thought that maybe we'll understand a spell well enough to perform it? First years back at Salem spend two to three classes just studying the technique and pronunciation of a simple levitating charm before attempting it, and even then can't perform it properly the first time. I don't know about you, but I would rather have practiced a spell properly before being in a situation where I may need it to save my life."

Umbridge's eyes narrowed and her lips became a thin line. She breathed deeply before coming to stand in front of Alice and Luna's desk. "You seem to be under the impression that you will be attacked upon leaving Hogwarts, Ms. Snape. Who exactly do you think is going to try and harm a student such as yourself?"

"Well for starters, I hear you folks over here have this Lord Voldemort dude running around, but-",

"You have heard wrong." Umbridge had cut her off, and looked around the room. Her face had a sad expression as she addressed the class. "I know well the rumors that you may have heard. The rumor that a certain 'Dark Lord' has reemerged. _This. Is. False._ There is no danger to any one of you."

"Excuse me," Alice did her best at a honeyed voice, not liking it but it grabbed Umbridge's attention quickly. Then her voice took on a steely tone, not unlike another currently residing in the castle. "I wasn't finished talking. I was saying 'but there's more than just assholes like him around." The toad faced woman tried to interrupt, but Alice wasn't going to let her this time. "What about thieves? Or rapists? Or how about murderers? We're not always going to be students, we're going to leave this place and go out into a world where real danger is, and there's nothing we can do but face it. You can't deny that those things exist!"

Umbridge's face had turned a rather bright shade of red. "Detention tonight at five o'clock Ms. Snape! Twenty points will be taken as well. Your language is deplorable, and your manners certainly need to be worked on. In this country we do not interrupt our elders, who are certainly much more knowledgable than outlandish little girls."

"Then don't interrupt me."

Gasps could be heard around the classroom and eyes widened at the nerve Alice was demonstrating. Few dared speak to a teacher in such a way, no matter how they felt about the subject. Umbridge closed her eyes and took a few nice, deep breaths. Her mind formulated a proper punishment for the problem child before her. _'Mr. Potter will be having company it seems.'_

She opened her eyes and pointed her wand to her desk, where her quill began to write on a spare piece of parchment. It finished quickly and sealed itself with a pink ribbon as the quill began writing on another parchment. This one took a bit longer but when it finished it also sealed itself, this time with a black ribbon, and both parchments came floating towards her. She snatched them from the air and held them out to Alice. "You are dismissed for the day Ms. Snape. You will take this parchment," she indicated the pink ribbond parchment, "to your Head of House. The other one you will take to your father. Now off you go."

Alice took them and stashed them and her textbook into her bag, slung the bag over her shoulder, and strolled out of the classroom. Eyes followed her as she left, not leaving her til she was out of sight.

"Back to your reading class."

* * *

Alice left the pink ribboned parchment on her Head of House's desk, as they were currently absent. She didn't see the point of sticking around when she still had to deliver the other one, which she really did not want to. She knew that on some level she was a tad bit frightened of him, but she'd never let it show. She didn't quite consider him as 'father', and most certainly not 'daddy' either. The 'sir' or 'professor' he had told her to address him as worked well for both of them, but in her head she considered him as 'Severus'.

Not that she would call him that to his face. Merlin knew he would probably pop a vein somewhere.

She kept telling herself she didn't want to deliver the note to him because she wasn't up for a lecture. But somewhere, deep down, she hadn't wanted to disappoint him. But she certainly wasn't going to take back what she'd done.

Her steps finally led her down into the dungeons where she had had her first potions lesson just the day before. She had been told where his office was, but had yet to see the inside of it. Walking past the classroom door, she noted the silence, and became aware that Severus might actually be in his office.

No, this certainly didn't bode well for her.

She came upon the door and took a breath. There was no way around this, for even if she didn't deliver the note she was certain Umbridge would mention something later to Severus later, then she would really be in for it. Upon meeting the stoic man for the first time Alice had figured him to be a 'no nonsense' sort of person, and perhaps the wrong man to get on the bad side of.

She lifted her hand to knock but the door opened eerily on its own. The sight she was presented with made her want to turn around and run. It wasn't as though she was freaked out by all of the preserved animal parts or insect segments that sat on the shelves on the walls. The semi-darkness was a rather nice touch as well, as the only light was that from the candles around the room. The desk in the back center of the room was antique, as far as she could tell, and the chairs looked to be a matching set to it.

No, what she wanted to run from was the man behind the desk, hands steepled, looking at her as though he knew she'd done something wrong.

"Alice, why aren't you in class?" His voice was soft, but she knew better than to think he was going to be nice to her, especially after he read the note she was to bring him. She walked forward, perhaps a bit too stiffly, but still made it to the front of the desk. Pulling the note from her bag, she handed it to him. She watched him take it and tap it with his wand. The black ribbon disappeared and the parchment unfolded.

Severus' eyes went back and forth, reading the note, but his face remained impassive. On the inside, however, he was rather annoyed. Surprisingly, it wasn't just directed at Alice either. He finished the note and placed it on his desk. His eyes settled on Alice, taking in her rigid stance. She was apprehensive, that was easy for him to tell. But why? Despite knowing her for only a short time, he found that she was rarely nervous.

"Would you care to explain your actions?"

"What is there to explain? It was a disagreement in teaching method and a difference in opinion."

"Not according to Delores Umbridge." He grabbed the note and thrust it in her direction. She took it and began reading.

_Severus,_

_I do apologize for taking up your valuable time, but it has come to my attention that something needs to be done about your daughter, Alice. Today, in one class alone, she has managed to not only raise her voice to me and insult my teaching method, but interrupt and toss about an obscenity that has no place in a school, nor in her mouth. On top of that she was raving about nasty sorts of people. I have already given her detention for the rest of the week with me, beginning tonight at five o'clock. House points have been taken and I have prepared a note to be delivered to her head of house explaining the situation. However, I feel as though this is not enough. I do not lay any blame with you, Severus, as I am fully understanding that you did not raise her. I am certain that if you had, we would not be in this situation. Nevertheless, I would suggest that in your capacity as her father, you also bestow upon her your own punishment. Please do not hesitate should you need advice in taking her in hand, as I am more than happy to assist in any way I can._

_Delores Jane Umbridge_

Alice blinked. "Is this bitch for real?"

"You know I do believe it was that particular language that helped to get you into this predicament in the first place."

Alice looked at him. "Hey, I only said 'asshole' and it was in reference to that Moldy person anyways." Severus nearly snorted, but caught himself. He shouldn't be laughing when this was supposed to be a serious conversation. "As for insulting her methods, which by the way is total and complete bull, I disagreed. All she has planned for us is learning theory, and that doesn't fly with me. I was just the only one that said so."

Alice was now pacing back and forth, and Severus leaned back in his chair while she started to rant. "That dumbass seems to think that there's nothing out there that we should be preparing for. If that were the case she'd be out of a fucking job! And all I did was start listing off the damn things we should be getting ready to deal with. I started off listing Voldy and she cut me off first. If she's here representing the stupid ministry and their idea of learning, maybe someone ought to teach them that there's more out there then megalomaniacs and their idiotic followers. And yes, thieves, rapists and murderers are horrible but still a danger that I for one would like to be able to defend myself against." She stopped to look at him. "I mean, you people have those over here, don't you?! They can't all be confined to the U.S."

Sighing deeply, Severus motioned for her to sit down in one of the chairs in front of his desk. He wasn't quite sure how to handle this, and he certainly would rather spell his hair pinker than Umbridge's cardigan before asking for assistance from her. He thought carefully before he spoke, and for extra precaution set a silencing spell on the entire room.

"You are going to listen to me young lady, and you will not interrupt, am I understood?" Alice nodded slowly and he continued. "Whether or not you agree with her method does not matter. You are the student, and she, unfortunately, is the professor. You are correct, there is more out there than dark wizards that will be intending to harm you. That you understand and are attempting to brace yourself for the possibilities is commendable, if not downright unnerving for a fourteen year old. But you are intelligent Alice, certainly intelligent enough to understand that Delores Umbridge is here for a reason. At the current moment she has only the power of a standard professor, but make no mistake in thinking that she will stay that way. For the Ministry to have power here, they must allow her to wield it. I have no doubts that she will soon have the power to both expel students and fire the staff. If you are expelled for your behavior, I can do little to keep you safe outside this castle, and after having kept you both safe and secret for the majority of the summer, I should hate to see you put into danger now. I will not send you back to Salem," she made to interrupt him, but he held up a hand to stop her, "no matter how much you may wish to go. Headquarters is not an option, given how you do not seem to get along with Black either. You would do well now to attempt to curb your behavior and language around this institution. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"And will there be any more problems?"

"Probably."

* * *

Couldn't help it, I kept envisioning this in my head. This occurs some months after the first chapter I posted. I came to a decision as I was writing this. I'm going to simply write chapters for now with the intent of having them focus around certain events while I decide if I want to make this a full story or not.


End file.
